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Grastens Builds the Comical Avante (GF-01CB)

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Another new build - a shorter one as I continue work on my more complicated projects - as I get my hands on the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

 

Overview

In 1988, Tamiya introduced the Avante. It was an ambitious response to the company’s flagging fortunes in international RC off-road buggy competition, utilizing radical new ideas in a radical new combination of materials. The execution unfortunately made for a racer that was overweight, oversteering, and overly fragile, meaning the Avante was never truly competitive in the international scene.

However, the aesthetics of the Avante – from its swoopy space-age styling to its purposeful mechanicals – have endured. It was a sought-after collector’s item, and the re-releases since 2011 have reaffirmed its appeal. It has become an icon of Tamiya’s radio-controlled vehicle lineup.

As such, when Tamiya introduced the “Comical Buggy” series, reimagining its best-known buggies with cartoonish proportions and performance, the company chose to represent the Avante. It is Tamiya’s first four-wheel-drive “Comical Buggy,” based on a derivative of the GF-01 chassis.

In theory: what the Comical Avante lacks in mechanical sophistication relative to its inspiration, it compensates in reliability and fun, and all in a stylishly-quirky package that approximates the original’s visual impact.

 

Grastens and the Comical Avante

The theory is part of the reason I got so excited for this particular release. Other reasons include: the buggy’s ability to run on trimmed grass (lots of that around here); the pre-painted body shell (painting weather and time rarely coincide for me these days); and the departures of my dearly-beloved Wheelie Rally chassis and Avante Black Special.

The moving-on of my Wheelie Rally chassis left me without a large-wheeled runner and wheelies, but more painful was the exit of my Avante Black Special, especially as its custom paint (one of my most inspired works) went unappreciated by its new owner, whom I have not heard from since. The Comical Avante might not be either car, but in some way, it captures the spirit of each.

The news of an unpainted Comical Avante body set certainly has me intrigued for later…

So, in the Comical Avante, I have a new-to-me chassis that promises to build up into a fun and reliable runner without the need to paint the shell, as well as a return of futuristic buggy styling and wheelies to my divided fleet of runners. A relatively-quick build and some running time may encourage me to finish my more complicated projects, too.

 

The Kit

My own example was a pre-ordered item from Tower Hobbies in the United States; new Tamiya releases seem hard to find from Canadian sellers.

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The box was nearly as tall as it was wide – a bit like the Comical Avante, I suppose!

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I remember when Tamiya used to include photos of their RC models at speed on what was presumably their facility track on the box. This edited picture suffices, though:

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And first impressions upon opening the box are fine:

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The scent of new tires took me all the way back to the first Tamiya I ever had…

This is the first new kit I will be building that has a pre-painted shell, and all applied evenly. The unpainted sections are where the optional headlight and taillight lenses, as well as a transponder stay, are located. Tamiya obviously sees racing in this Avante’s future, too!

Unpacking a bit, we get this:

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Of particular interest to me was this tuning guide, included among all the instructional, legal, and promotional literature in the box:

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I do not know if this is a feature of the other Comical Buggy kits, but for a rookie like me, I found it enlightening. TG-10 axles and otherwise-unused wheel hexes are mentioned here as a means to widen the track, and a special gearbox plate plays a part in extending the wheelie bar.

The plan is to build the car stock, with ball bearings. The GF-01 chassis is one I have never built before, so I intend to go into some detail during this build thread to give my impressions on the mechanicals. My inexperience with it also means I should be satisfied with a relatively-unmodified build, to start.

Later on, I may upgrade the motor and gearing (if possible), and add a custom-painted shell to recall my Avante Black Special.

For now, let us begin, on our way to experiencing all that the Comical Avante was probably meant to be!

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Nice post. I will follow this with interest. I like the banner on top of each of your building post.

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Thank you! I enjoy writing more than is necessary for these things :P However, that is also because I feel build threads should at least have the builder's own unique impressions of the model at hand.

 

So as the build commenced, the first thing I started was the electronics configuration:

RjGPxMh.jpg

It seems I do not have a waterproof ESC, as previously believed, but I do have servos and a new receiver that works with my Spektrum DX3C radio. Poignantly, the channel I used to bind the new receiver was the one I used for my Avante Black Special.

The radio is showing signs of wear and tear, though; the trim switches are responding erratically, and I just managed to set everything to neutral before they stopped responding. The scrolling thumb-wheel is also not particularly quick to respond. I do have an upgraded radio somewhere… maybe with my waterproof ESC?

With the radio equipment settled, I revisited some of my old building tactics. One was the use of kit-box lubricants for threading screws:

0aekBcL.jpg

However, this is all the ball differential grease I have… Where does my stuff even go? The Tamiya Grease tube, though, is untouched.

After gathering my other tools, including a brand-new set of Tamiya plastic side-cutters purchased especially for this project, I began on:

rHDMHly.jpg

This entailed building up the gear differentials. And these things are huge!

3I5gHR8.jpg

The scale of these kits (1:10) always surprises me, for some reason. It is as if the car is always bigger than I expect it to be, as if I had been working on 1:14 or even 1:18 kits my whole life. It is always that way with the kit’s tires, but rarely with the internals… The large size of the gears gave me reassurance that they could stand up to quite a bit of running, which is desirable in a kit like this.

I had a single small tub of Tamiya Anti-Wear Grease left, so I set about lubricating the differentials with it, if not quite packing the assemblies:

jqaSGZr.jpg

These are brand-new tweezers I am using. I have never seen anything this sharp! I kept fearing for my eyes whenever I used them, even if the precision they can afford me in future model-building projects can be much greater than whatever I had been using until this time. Safety glasses in the future, then!

Surprisingly (to me), they were held together with three regular button-head self-tapping screws:

2pXkItG.jpg

Every other geared differential I had seen thus far, when it used screws, had special smaller ones that were typically countersunk. With the amount of room in the GF-01’s gearbox, though, the same ones that would be used for much of the rest of the car could fit here. I found this an interesting and useful concession to ease-of-assembly.

Of course, two of them were assembled:

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And then, the rest of the gears followed:

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Here were all the properly-functioning ball bearings I had to start the project:

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As duplicates of each of the counter gears are present in the gearbox, I completely miscalculated the number of ball bearings required to replace all the bushings and metal bearings in the kit! As such, I had to put rubber-shielded bearings into two of the gears. I chose the larger counter gears, hoping they do not spin up to the same speeds as the smaller ones, thus offsetting whatever drag they might have over the metal-shielded types – but really, who cares besides me?!

My original plan of using metal-shielded units in the gearbox and rubber-shielded types everywhere else was ditched in favour of using whatever I could, wherever I could. I still found it sensible to use rubber-shielded ones for the differential outdrives:

AklSeNk.jpg

But wait, that’s a metal-shielded one at the rear of the chassis! I am hoping that the rear location is less exposed to dirt by virtue of the rear wheels being non-steering and fronted by, well, the front wheels.

… I can tell I am overthinking this one. My time as a bicycle mechanic, where marginal gains are obsessed over (and usually again not terribly important – not a lot of our customers went racing), might be at play…

Anyway, I felt better to mix up bearings between the front and rear outdrives instead of the front and rear large counter gears, so doing this with the outdrives meant I could fit identical bearing types into the gears, between each pair:

7GCHf7M.jpg

I am still four bearings short of completing the kit. As far as I can tell now, I need four more of the 1150s, and preferably rubber-sealed since they will be residing in the hubs. I would need six more to ensure all are rubber-sealed in these locations, since I now have two rubber-shielded types and two in metal.

With current events as they are, I paid the small fortune required by a local source, which also only stocked rubber-shielded 1150s. Hopefully, going local means they will arrive quickly! In the interim (and honestly, I am not sure I will have it up and running before the new bearings arrive), I would look at fitting ball bearings to the inside of each hub, and plastic bearings on the outsides.

It is clear that I am out of practice building these things, even the most basic kits! Still: fun, isn’t it? :P

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We continued on the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

Tamiya had the chassis halves on the D-parts tree, but then asks you to dig into the F-parts sprue for the bumper mount to help hold the chassis together. This goes on with four screws at the front, while seven secure the halves to each other, resulting in this:

OItLJd9.jpg

… Do I need to remind you how out-of-practice I was? I even forgot to lubricate the gears! That will be eleven screws to rectify that, but at least they are all pre-threaded now… On the other hand, everything turned smoothly with no binding and appreciably low friction, so perhaps that may be why I overlooked this particular step.

I was motor-minded first, though:

yzHIyoy.jpg

(make that 13 screws now!)

Accompanying this motor was a slightly-battered but still-meshing 20-tooth pinion, to replace the stock 18-tooth one. I like having a little more top-end in my models, particularly on this wheelie chassis that would not appear to have much speed potential, if my WR-02 experience is to be believed. I mean, this thing will not be racing touring cars, but with long straights still foreseen for this model, I would like a bit of excitement at the prospect of winding it out.

The pinion is to be set so that the distance between its outer face and the cardboard plate is 14 mm. This proved easy to do with the manual’s illustrations, and so everything bolted in nicely:

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Thus concludes:

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And now on to:

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We now see things like this combined L-parts and N-parts sprues, as well as some slightly-flexible dark-grey plastics that somehow feel different from anything else before the Comical Buggy series:

zR2sEhm.jpg

There are two of these sprues, which I remember from my WR-02 days.

I also gave up on reaching for and squeezing a tube for each and every screw on this kit, breaking out the value tub of clear grease for this purpose:

kxfQTlU.jpg

Typically used on my bicycles, this tub has already lasted me three years, with about 80 percent of its contents left. Surely a few models’ worth of screws will not be any trouble? In any case, my building sped up appreciably following this substitution.

Front suspension arms followed:

F4hV4Yu.jpg

These appear to be a different plastic than I remembered from my WR-02 – superior, even, in terms of flexibility without impairing performance. They went together without issue, helped by the presence of raised marks on the arms that denote orientation of the pieces.

The tuning guide and my anticipated running patterns would have suggested putting the suspension ball connectors in the outer holes, but I do want to experience the car in a stock form first. The mere presence of ball connectors instead of the more-familiar step screws for this step was something I noticed. It certainly feels like a step up in sophistication from the original WR-02, even if I appreciated the step screws from a serviceability perspective.

Step screws still preside over the upper suspension arms, though, as well as the U-shaped bar for the lower arms. We thus get this for the front:

Pb9blP7.jpg

And that is about where I stopped for the session:

HddnRCs.jpg

The next step will be front uprights, but I intend to dismantle the gearbox first to add the required lubrication for the gears. I can still hardly believe the omission!

Regardless, to celebrate the new build, I created a new avatar for the occasion:

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A tiny little image, yes, but under the 1 kB file limit for user profile pictures! This is one way to comply with the file size restriction. Sized up, it looks like this:

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Yes, the excitement is certainly there! The Comical Buggy series seems to be good at inciting that...

Edit: the image has since undergone minute changes to bring it down to 1.023 kB, which seems to be the figure accepted by TamiyaClub - at any higher than that, the image did not upload properly.

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With the front arms in on the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

Front uprights are next:

56Wu1Pn.jpg

The knuckles are horizontally symmetrical, but the hub carriers are not. I found myself triple-checking to ensure I had the right orientation. There have been several occasions on other builds when I have either assembled the hub carriers the wrong way, or put the ball connectors on the wrong side of the knuckles. My last two (for now) rubber-shielded bearings went in here.

Of interest to me was the selection of two different output shafts between the front and rear wheels:

DC4jEt0.jpg

The ones closest to the camera are used in the front, with the all-silver ones going in the rear. Assuming the torque to be equal going to the front and rear wheels (on account of the vertically-symmetrical gearbox internals), could the front ones confer an advantage to running a steering pair of wheels? Perhaps this could be akin to running dog-bone shafts on one end and CV joints on the other.

The front end also gets a small plate to contain the U-bar, resulting in the following:

KUq5f3S.jpg

This assembly shows surprisingly little slop, but the nature of the design will probably see it develop plenty more before long. There is a caution in the manual to avoid over-tightening the step screws in the suspension arms to avoid binding, though I never encountered this as a problem.

(While at odds with the car's objective as a fun and reliable runner, it would be interesting to see just how far one can take a GF-01CB in the context of performance and build quality, using - what else - the Avante as inspiration. There is a thread on that somewhere...)

Rear lower suspension arms followed, built up much like the front units:

C71i9Br.jpg

There do seem to be more mounting options for the rear dampers, with three positions for the ball connector on each arm. It makes sense, if the fine-tuning of the rear suspension affects the total character of the car more than the front (for wheelies just as much, if not more, than actual traction).

Repeating the front end’s assembly, but without separate hub carriers and knuckles, we get to here:

7VMYHNA.jpg

And now we can get started on:

ZysQZrL.jpg

Consisting largely of damper parts, next!

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As before,

ZysQZrL.jpg

Contains the dampers. These are oil-filled, a welcome change from the friction dampers that appear on other WR-02 kits. The Comical Buggy series appears to include these as standard equipment.

The spares from Parts Bag B:

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The inclusion of extra step screws, ball connectors, and O-rings was quite welcome. However, there should only be two spare ball connectors in this picture, because I somehow omitted them from the rear damper tower! Still, as spare parts go, these were thoughtful.

For the dampers, I skipped with even brushing the dust off my pit stand, pressing it into action as my damper assembly station. The holes in the stand are made for this purpose:

02Op706.jpg

The stand had previously been holding up my Lancia 037 4WD-H project. The dimensions of the platform work for that car, as well as many other 1:10 scale models, but it is too long in either direction to comfortably hold the GF-01CB without some form of suspension compression. In any case, it just had to hold dampers while their oil settled.

I ended up with low rebound on both rear dampers, and slightly-asymmetrical rebound on the fronts after some iterative building. Springs made the differences less of an issue.

While they are oil dampers, they are not particularly high-quality types, with the piston and shaft as one piece and using black O-rings. It is more of an observation than a complaint, since the inclusion of oil dampers is most welcome for these dynamic short-wheelbase chassis.

Building up with all-grey plastics, lighter than those used in the front arms or other assemblies, they were pleasant to assemble:

sg7KaC4.jpg

I would have thought at least black lower eyelets and/or spacers would have made more of a visual impact, but the finished units do not give away much in appearance. It would have been fun, though, to evoke the visuals of a Hi-Cap damper with these plastic types!

And so they went on the front end:

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And the rear end:

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Bringing us to:

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Electronics, coming up! This is where I left off for the session:

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The thick rear arms made securing the dampers to their ball connectors a tricky business for regular pliers. Wide-jaw types will have an easier go of it. Even the rear damper tower, with the battery holder integrated into the rear of the chassis, provided little consistent purchase for a pair of pliers.

So far, the GF-01 has been much like the WR-02, save for that interesting gearbox. However, the similarities may very well end beyond this step, especially where electronics are concerned – we shall see how everything manages to fit under the Avante-style shell…

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X7povZs.jpg

Has the servo saver as its first step:

gwkAq7M.jpg

I do not believe I have ever seen this serrated metal washer in any other servo saver I have built. Either that, or I do not remember my other builds particularly well. It would be far from the only surprise in this build, though…

This direction, identifying the screw and servo saver piece to use for Tamiya servos, was also news to me. The typical description for other brands of servo was below this step in the manual, but I do not recall being directed to use this particular screw for this particular servo. As mine fitted the Tamiya servo part, I used the 2.6 x 12 mm screw – not a particularly good instinct, but this off-brand servo accepted it.

ag68Cgh.jpg

I would learn later that I had oriented the servo saver incorrectly by 180 degrees…

But this is what surprised me:

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The use of a steering linkage system is unusual, though warranted by the packaging constraints of this particular chassis. But ball bearings, too? I was not expecting that!

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Tie rods were assembled – 33 mm between adjusters for the steering rods, and 24 mm for the rod connecting the linkage to the servo saver:

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All together now:

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Ingenious was Tamiya’s incorporation of the steering linkage’s axle into the chassis:

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The hole you see is where the axle slides in, to sit inside a recess on the other end. We are looking at the underside of the chassis. A 3 x 20 mm screw then prevents the shaft from falling out the bottom, entering through one side of the hole before threading into the plastic on the other side. Reading the manual, it was suggested that this screw acted more as a pinch/grub screw, but this solution is superior for retention. In the absence of the same space in the front of the chassis as in the WR-02, the GF-01 makes use of some interesting ideas.

The servo sits on the side of the chassis. How does it get secured? It gets screwed in from the inner side of the chassis half, with holes and recesses large enough for a screwdriver to pass through:

qnthKdL.jpg

I came to appreciate details like these, that both made a functioning chassis possible, and assembly that much easier. For example, this notch in the chassis to provide clearance for the steering linkage rod:

mSfxKHi.jpg

For the headaches that arise from seemingly-bad decision-making or design, touches like the ones mentioned are surely signs that at least a few people at Tamiya are thinking!

We then get into some of the new parts made for the Comical Buggy series. In the foreground is the GF-01 battery door, which is here out of curiosity:

yxx6pEA.jpg

That front bumper must be unique to the Comical Avante – its styling is pleasingly reminiscent of the original Avante bumper.

Among the unique parts is this curious piece, which is used to mount the receiver and ESC:

8D1wLhi.jpg

Sponge tape is provided, to cushion/secure the battery in its compartment. Most of one strip supplies the battery door:

d4fAsaf.jpg

But with a strip of tape sticking to the reinforcement ribs of the battery door instead of a flat surface, I have doubts about how well the tape will hold. If the tape works in compression, though, pressing against the battery, perhaps adhesion is not an issue.

Small pieces are used for the forward corners of the tray. The manual advises 10 mm pieces, but I found that by cutting a single corner off each, the fit could be further enhanced:

4gjWvaA.jpg

These snap pins securing the battery door seem recent:

ndqPzKt.jpg

Electronics are coming up! We shall soon see how the mounting piece works.

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The piece that mounts the receiver and ESC to the chassis does not screw or click in, but relies on double-sided tape and two pegs with matching holes in the chassis. The pegs allow proper location of the part, while the tape holds it in place:

etEJycl.jpg

Tamiya provides some excellent double-sided tape in their kits, being quite adhesive yet thin. The piece sticks on near the back of the chassis, ideal for its wheelie-centric performance:

My4afGP.jpg

The receiver and ESC then mount on either side of the piece using double-sided tape. Tamiya’s tape was good, but not nearly abundant enough for me (I like to maximize surface area), so I used a small piece of my ancient and not nearly as good tape to finish the job. Everything appears secure:

TWazDV8.jpg

The instructions depict the Tamiya TEU-105BK ESC, which is slightly smaller than the TBLE-02S that was supplied in the kit. As such, I needed to ensure that proper clearances were maintained between the cables, chassis parts, and heat sink.

Setting up the TBLE-02S was easier than I thought it would be, given that I had been taking the recent generation of “plug-and-play” ESCs for granted. It sure is nice having a button on it that can be pressed by a human finger!

I eventually figured out the wiring, too, as suggested by the manual:

kJagkF7.jpg

Why does everything mount like this? I believe that with the limited clearance under the Avante shell, or rather in the interest of allowing the Comical Avante to appear more Avante-like, the electronics are concentrated where the narrow canopy section of the body would be. This would be immediately behind the driver figure, in a space not much wider than that. This would allow for the low side-pods that are a characteristic of the Avante, to be retained for the Comical Avante.

And with the proportions of the shell, that canopy section would be tall enough to house an ESC mounted sideways!

The wheelie bar was next. Tamiya specifies two options for mounting this: one uses four 10 mm screws, while the other uses a special reinforcing plate, four 8 mm spacers, and four 20 mm screws.

fAUEyZn.jpg

I went with the latter, reasoning that I neither wanted nor could control really outrageous wheelies:

t5mIbTJ.jpg

Two special moulded plastic plates and a third assembly – the new “exhaust pipes” are added to the rear. The plates are put on first, followed by the pipes, depicted below:

PR0tAF4.jpg

I have mixed feelings about these on the Comical Avante. To me, the Avante was never an internal-combustion vehicle, unlike the Grasshopper or Frog which were representations of single-seater off-road buggies that raced with automotive engines. Even if it was to be, the carbon-fibre-pattern decals that cover the pipes makes little to no sense for me.

That being said, the pipes and plumbing are crisply-moulded, which added to the temptation of detailing them with some type of silver paint. However, I would rather not draw too much attention to them… Interestingly, if you look inside the pipes, the shape of the moulded plastic in there could suggest afterburners – maybe that would be more befitting the styling!

The plastic plates are primarily used for mounting the rear body posts, but are rather flimsy on their own. The exhaust pipe piece braces them, attaching to them with a machine screw and a nut on the other end:

bgCETjR.jpg

Down below, two 10 mm self-tapping screws fasten it to the chassis.

The instructions called for taillights, but I omitted these as I do not currently have plans to run lights on my Comical Avante. The housings for the LEDs did not appear essential to the chassis, fortunately.

And so, the chassis looks like this:

38ExcDS.jpg

Before proceeding to:

0yvKDoc.jpg

All kinds of interesting details and steps were covered in the previous parts bag – what awaits this one?

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0yvKDoc.jpg

Finishes up the chassis, starting with hardware to build the side nerf bars:

SrQxvU1.jpg

They lend a distinctive visual character to the Comical Buggy series, and allow the Comical Hornet and Grasshopper to retain that part of their aesthetic. To me, it does not look out of place with the Comical Avante, at least from the box-art pictures. Six pieces assembled in the foreground replace the two chassis rails on the sprue in the background, which are a unique feature of the WR-02 chassis.

The hardware gets a little complicated for Parts Bag E:

Aw7Q5k6.jpg

With several different types of screws now, many of them anodized in the same finish, things get confusing. Much of the hardware here is not even used in the kit, leading me to believe that the parts bag was the same one as from another kit. Checking the instructions for the body set gives no clarity on the use for the extra hardware...

The new chassis rails/nerf bars add some useful protection for the motor, if only some:

oevUdJQ.jpg

They also provide a useful place for an on/off switch, obscured by the motor cables in this photo. They are symmetrical to each other, meaning a switch can be mounted on either side.

Body posts are up next, using the same type of post for all four corners:

fI7iSjK.jpg

They may yet get trimmed down substantially…

The antenna tubes are the result of a single one-foot antenna tube getting cut in half, and then put on aerial mounts as part of the three-piece side rails. My receiver had enough antenna to make use of the left-hand (on the right in this photo) aerial tube:

c2IkPuZ.jpg

I can hardly wait to try out the concept in a rollover! :P Oh, the memories of scratching up the roof of my Avante...

And now, that unique front bumper:

j571LUy.jpg

It looks good on this chassis:

tDzSWtj.jpg

It would be a nice modification for other WR-02 projects, I think. It evokes the Avante, but the shape would not look too out of place on another car.

The chassis is now mostly complete.

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It's good to see you building again, @Grastens!  The whole comical aspect of this, especially the tail pipes, makes me think of bosozoku car culture in Japan.  Make it even more comical!

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Thank you! It feels great to be building again. And as predicted, I am set to make progress on the Ferrari 312T3, too ;)

On with the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

Wheels are typically assembled and mounted as the final steps of the chassis are undertaken, but for this build I elected to leave the wheels for last in the chassis build. I wanted to examine them in more detail, as they are completely new to me.

For some reason, I get fixated on the wheels of the cars I am building. The ones on the Comical Avante certainly got my attention early on, with the combination of yellow outer rims and dark inner parts recalling the original Avante’s Cam-Loc wheels, and shod with those large “bubble-block” tires. Only a modestly-spiked tire would have been more suitable, though less practical than this tread pattern, which should wear well over all kinds of running.

And with that, I began on the wheels:

AK6tza4.jpg

Much to my surprise, the wheel centres are not black, but dark grey – more like the dampers than the chassis. I think black would have been better, but it shocked me to think that the real colour had never occurred to me in all this time.

The wheels also appear to be the same width at all four corners, meaning tires are the only difference.

Each wheel inner fastens to an outer with five 2.6 x 8 mm screws. I finished two wheels with a regular screwdriver before my brain kicked in and I switched to a ratcheting driver to finish the other pair.

The wheels are quite attractive once finished:

WTxTe4g.jpg

Wearing the new bubble-block tires, the fronts are now markedly narrower than the rears:

664vZZi.jpg

I wondered if this changed the diameter of the front and rear wheels, respective to each other. In the end, there was scarcely an appreciable difference between the fronts and rears.

With four 1150 plastic bushings to fill the outside of each hub, the wheels could be mounted and the chassis completed:

1sH23US.jpg

This, with word that my ball bearings will be arriving tomorrow. The bushings will be quite temporary.

The front track is still narrower than the rear, which is not always the case with off-road chassis:

gm6XM2L.jpg

And with plenty of leftover goods, too:

JaGZXpF.jpg

Not much of this is used for the body, so I have to wonder what is up…

With the chassis complete, the body is next. I can see that the holes are pre-drilled, so it should be just a matter of cutting the shell and wing, cutting decals, applying them, and completing the driver.

This GF-01 chassis has certainly surprised me with some of its design details. I am glad to have built one, and hope to say the same about running one soon – the driver figure has been washed and left to dry, awaiting paint and finishing…

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I'm enjoying the detail of your thread, thanks for sharing.

I can't decide whether I'm into these comical buggies or not to be honest, especially the Avante. I think I do like them as I somehow get drawn into looking at them...just need to admit it to myself :P

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Thanks for the photos of the main chassis, that confirms the D parts are different from those on the earlier GF01 models. Mostly new additional mounting locations as far as I can tell. Think that means most of the aftermarket shock towers won't fit anymore. Not a huge loss there, but it will complicate some mods.

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And now, the body for the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

But first, a delivery of ball bearings and some fresh new X-Acto blades:

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The body is pre-painted in that lovely PS-16 Metallic Blue, with the holes also pre-drilled for the body posts and the rear wing. Cutting is all that is required:

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I am out of practice, though, so things got a bit dicey. I removed the light lenses first, as they were the easiest to cut and not involved in my particular build right now:

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The rear wing in particular has many different angles, perhaps even more so than the original Avante wing. It proved tricky to cut out properly; here it is in progress:

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Conversely, the shell had only a few cuts that required extra attention. I had talked long ago about removing some extra material where the “Diablo Engineering” decals would go, in order to accentuate the shape of the front, but elected against it with the scissors in hand. I ended up finishing the shell first:

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I had almost forgotten to remove the transponder stay:

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Along with a large swatch of PS-16-painted polycarbonate. I really do like the colour.

So, now I had to cut decals. By virtue of being an entry-level kit aimed at younger audiences, I was hoping to relent a bit on the cutting, i.e. not too many decals to remove, and not too many aggressive angles to handle.

However, I gave it my best effort, with the first one to extract being this tiny little detail:

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Tamiya really isn’t messing around with this Avante tribute! This decal is featured on the original, too, and is actually a nice touch for an ostensibly canopy-equipped vehicle.

I then separated the decals I would either use later or not in the foreseeable future:

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The helmet decals are in the foreground and will be used; the light lens decals are in the middle ground and will go on if/when lights are installed, and the rest are extras. The exception is the pair of carbon-fibre pattern decals that were to be used for the exhaust pipes, but as before, I saw no need for them.

About an hour of trimming got me here with the decals:

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And with that, it becomes a case of peel-and-stick! Right…

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Decal time for the:

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It began with the removal of the overspray film on the shell and wing. The PS-16 is even deeper and more lustrous than I imagined! :wub:

Once my infatuation passed, I organized my work station:

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My additional supplies for this task included a bottle of window cleaner and some clean towels, to go along with my new tweezers and X-Acto blade.

The X-Acto blade was really there to take care of the first order of business:

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Having previously left a lot of clear film for the “Intake” decals, I saw fit to remove it before starting. I mean, there really was no purpose to it…

With a long layoff between decals on shells, I followed the numbered order laid out by the manual, with few exceptions. Steps were omitted where the decals corresponded to the driver figure, which had not been painted yet.

Decal number one? The iconic Avante script:

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The box photo helped here. I knew to cut away the excess decal between the legs of the A, to help the script conform to the unusual corner on the edge of the side pod. The box photo example had this, too. It still required plenty of effort to position and smooth down, but in the end the first one was a success!

The others went well. What interested me was Tamiya’s use of decals to accent the rear bodywork:

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In theory, it would be easier to paint the black sections of this part of the shell. For a pre-painted body, I suppose it adds expense. I believe this is to simulate a wing stay from the rear of the bodywork, or at least to add visual interest to this area.

With the various shapes and curves, though, decals to cover it properly would require careful design. It seems Tamiya has ensured this, and what was anticipated to be a challenge ended up being simple. I should not be surprised, given Tamiya’s past use of decals to represent large coloured sections of bodywork in other kits; I think about the Loctite Zexel GT-R that I built some time ago:

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It would have been so much easier to paint the front half of that shell a different colour, but Tamiya’s decals made an admirable effort.

I would have never thought that I would be encountering such famous decals in a kit like the Comical Avante, yet here we are:

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After the first decal, everything appeared to be coming easily, even the intake decals:

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However, my properly-cut window trim decals did not quite make it to the top of the canopy:

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Perhaps I could have aligned them differently at the lower edges of the canopy, but then they would not line up with the front…

A tiny patch of electrical tape stepped in:

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Though barely noticeable, perhaps I could explain it away as a hinge cover? I actually have no idea how the Avante’s canopy would open, though the presence of the “Eject” decal on the rear (not yet applied in the previous photo) would suggest a front-hinging one. Oh, well…

If not for the antenna masts, the electrical tape might be able to handle a rollover better than a decal!

I will note that the front canopy decal (with the “UV Protected” decal over it) could be trimmed quite close and it would fit better than it did on my kit. I left just a slight border on it, and it still hung slightly over the edges of the canopy. It is decal 27.

I eventually finished up the shell, save for one decal:

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And maybe the most iconic of them all: the “Being Nuts is Neat!” that makes an Avante just as much as the “Paranoid Perry” and “Yellow 5” decals do.

Significance aside, the reason I installed this one last was because the decal sits over the mounting screws that affix the wing to the body. Ordinarily, I would apply the screws over the decal, or else punch holes to access the screws, but as the wing is attached to the body and not the chassis (as is the case for the original Avante), I did not see myself removing the wing with any frequency. Hence, I wished to work with the shell by itself before installing the wing, which necessitated applying the wing decal at the end.

I write this because the wing decal is actually numbered 3 in the manual.

And with that, the shell is complete!

vpZxQhz.jpg

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The chassis, however, could use some small touches. The antenna mast flags went on:

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I was reluctant to apply these, given the potential for messing up a decal that is supposed to stick to itself, but some care and a bit of window cleaner convinced me to go for it. In the end, the flags worked quite well.

I also like the minor decals that go on the chassis:

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And now, united:

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A bit bright? Let’s try this one:

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And because this car is so inherently silly, I felt the need to use the otherwise-dormant wide-angle lens on my camera of choice:

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And thus concludes the bodywork:

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Next up: fill this space!

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Perusing the instructions, already I can tell this driver figure is going to be fascinating:

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Tamiya, for a cheap and cheerful driver figure that is intended to fill the cockpits of many recreational and/or entry level models, and lacking the seriousness of even those, has gone to lengths to hide screw holes in the hands, arms, and helmet. I have never seen decals used for this purpose that then get painted over. This does reduce expense while increasing customizability, though.

It is actually rather clever, despite the fact that it makes painting and assembly unusually complex for such a simple driver figure. Fortunately, Tamiya also seems to have thought this through, with the fully painted and assembled figure attaching to the chassis with double-sided tape. Nonetheless, some time must be taken to figure out what to assemble and what to leave on the sprue before paint.

From what I can tell: I will be attaching the helmet halves before painting, while painting the visor and chin guard separately. The shirt of the torso and part of the arms will be painted before assembling the gloves, which will have decals covering the screws before getting painted themselves. The steering wheel, face, and driver mount can be painted separately, after which everything will be assembled. The arms will then be fully painted to cover the screw holes for the driver mount, and then the figure can be affixed to the chassis.

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It is a bit convoluted in comparison to other driver figures, especially the Wild Willy torso, which did not even bother with a covering for the screw hole in his arm. However, as none of this involves bolting the figure directly to the chassis (which then either means an exposed screw after all that effort, or one that is difficult to access, or even a difficult time removing said driver for any reason), I agree with it.

What I don’t agree with? The lack of seat harness decals to go with the figure. I know it made its debut with the T3-01, a vehicle in which a driver is not likely to have one, or at least a visible one. Moulding the torso without belts, then, makes sense. Some decals to represent safety harnesses would be a nice option, though, for the times this guy gets behind the wheel of a buggy.

This is less about any perceived aesthetics and more about encouraging safe behaviours in the children who may be building this kit, but then, I am no doubt overthinking this… Though I am not a small child, I do think safety harnesses should at least be part of the conversation.

… And besides: an Avante driver who isn’t belted in?! Being Nuts is DANGEROUS!

What is neat is the use of pre-cut decals that include the eyes and eyebrows. Four different types are available, so finishing the separately-moulded face (another ingenious step) is as easy as putting on some coats of whatever skin colour you want and then sticking on the eyes and eyebrows.

I have some ideas I would like to try for the driver (including seeing if I have any seat harness decals that fit, left from previous sheets), but I do intend to build it up as laid out in the instructions. Now, to get started...

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Best regards for the topic, very well done.

may you tell me the codes written at the end of the manual for front longer dogbones and for front and rear suspensions arms? I want buy them for extending my Konghead. 
thanks.

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On 5/17/2020 at 1:34 PM, Grastens said:

Another new build - a shorter one as I continue work on my more complicated projects - as I get my hands on the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

Ha ha! What a laugh! :P

 

A year later, and we are STILL working on the:

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The intervening year really interfered… The coronavirus would have given me more time, except as my industry was declared essential, I was working regular hours throughout the pandemic so far.

… Well, I would have been, had depression not completely taken over my life. Fortunately, I did get a formal diagnosis, and at least I am receiving treatment. Some days are harder than others, but that is to be expected with this particular condition.

Incidentally, I find myself on another depression-related Leave-of-Absence (though not by choice), and so I FINALLY had both the time and the ambition to complete this project!

It actually all happened with the introduction of another special project in my life:

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My wonderful fiancée made my dream come true, and now I am the proud owner of a Hotshot! More on that later…

It was the rush to finish that one – namely, painting the driver figure – that motivated me to get a move on the Comical Avante at last. I had previously left the driver figure sprue partially-painted; the arms, face, and helmet had all received a desultory first coat of paint, while the steering wheel, torso, and gloves had yet to be started.

I set everything up for both cars, and finished it all in a few hours’ worth of painting. The Comical Avante sprue looked a lot better with more coats:

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To pay homage to the original Avante’s driver figure, I elected to paint the torso in X-3 Royal Blue. This was a colour I had on hand for my Ferrari 312T3 project (another multi-year affair), and was quite pleased with both the way it went down, and the way it turned out. The gloves were also painted in this colour; I would not have been able to use white paint, anyway, for my jars went missing! Whatever the case, I enjoyed the effect of my alternative colour choice.

The helmet, meanwhile, got several coats of XF-56 Metallic Grey. The first coat was patently awful, but once the second coat went on, the colour really took on life. Perhaps I had just mixed it poorly the first time around…

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I set everything aside for the day to cure, with the only paint remaining being the XF-1 Flat Black for the helmet trim.

I will note that I used the “softer” eyes for the driver face. This being 2021, I was quite excited to use them. The overall design of this driver figure is quite ingenious, including both the cut and the variety of eye decals in the kit. They went on smoothly, and have the right lustre for eyes; the small border around them may even suggest some sort of goggles.

Does my driver figure have a gender? Who knows? Who cares? All that matters is that they are almost ready to drive!

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A beautiful day out there, and prime time to complete the:

oNw3fJR.jpg

Once again, I had left insufficient time for the paint to cure, but no matter: I was determined to finish the driver figure today.

The XF-1 Flat Black went on quite nicely. I finally invested in some proper Tamiya paint brushes, and marvelled at the difference they made to my painting. Previously, I had tended to use a toothpick for detailing, but brushes were far superior at holding the lines I needed to paint the helmet trim neatly.

I may have still ended up with a few errors, but the result was to my liking. There is no getting around the fact that this car is being finished by someone who most of all wants to drive it!

It meant handling parts that still had soft paint on them – the XF-1 had not even fully dried yet – but I was able to assemble the driver figure. I made the mistake of adding the screw hole cover decal on the back of the helmet before adding the sun visor. The sun visor does not clip on; rather, it is meant to be placed on the rear half of the helmet before being sandwiched between the front and rear halves.

Things got dicey, and I probably put a thumb-print or two on the otherwise-decent finish, but it went together! From there, it was finding and applying the required screws for the gloves and chin guard, and soon it was time for decals!

Those decals are thoughtfully designed, by the way. I cut them close to the borders, and was rewarded with a remarkably-clean finish. Everything lined up near-perfectly, and smoothed down reasonably well:

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Further persuasion with a hair dryer got everything well down.

While I wished to use the spare Avante decal for the driver’s torso, the dark colour of the shirt meant that it would be barely visible. I did not have any blank white decal to back the letters, so I used a light-blue backing instead, left over from my Lancia 037 4WD-H project. Having placed it too low on the torso, I relented and added the suggested Tamiya logo decal above it:

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I thought it all ended up looking rather nice.

And now, the driver into the car!

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I was amazed at how well the driver figure was designed for the shell, and/or vice versa. There is barely any clearance under the shell for the figure, and yet nothing abrades.

Having savoured the completion of this project at long last, it was time to drive!

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I had a small brick patio and a larger grass lawn to use. The grass was a bit long; while the Comical Avante could indeed run on it, I ultimately had more fun on the brick!

On that brick, the Comical Avante actually gripped quite well under turning. Those round-profile bubble tires, differentials, and oil-filled dampers really combined to make this chassis a capable one. I could not suppress a smile as I carved imaginary corners around the patio.

And then the fun REALLY began:

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We have plenty of cuts of wood over here, so I found some small cuts (~5 cm diameter) and laid them out on the brick. What would happen?

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I soon found out that this Comical Avante may be the most capable jumper of any vehicle I have owned. Granted, that is not saying much, but the car was clearly unfazed by these comparative speed-bumps. The oil-filled dampers and large tires really helped it to stick landings cleanly.

That is not to say I never rolled the thing:

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Predictably, turning while getting only two wheels on a “log” would always tip it over. I did manage to botch a jump and overturn the car, as well. I learned that those antenna masts are largely for show! However, I could only laugh every time I flipped it – what would this car be if it didn’t look like it had been played with? This seemed to be the whole point of the Comical Buggy series, and in the many times that I eventually rolled the Comical Avante, I just flipped it back over and kept on going.

Consequently, I had a wonderful time with this little buggy before the battery finally ran out.

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I did recover the missing antenna flag. As only one of the masts actually has an antenna in it, I am still deciding on whether or not to keep two on the chassis. As for the quite-fresh driver figure: the bodywork had done its “job.”

So: all this time later, I finally got to experience – and understand – what the Comical Avante is all about. It looked spectacular doing its thing, did its thing with a charming combination of competence and irreverence, and helped me rediscover the joy of casual radio-controlled cars. I hardly even cared that I scuffed the shell big-time, perhaps even unnecessarily, because that was not what mattered about the whole experience. I can say I am truly pleased with this new buggy ^_^

The batteries are charging for the next session as I write… For now, this finally concludes the build!

P.S. The scuff marks on top of the shell reminded me of my dearly-departed Avante Black Special :ph34r:

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